<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>post-script by tepesh (TheRoseGalaxies)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22568266">post-script</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRoseGalaxies/pseuds/tepesh'>tepesh (TheRoseGalaxies)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>we've come a long way [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Goodbyes, M/M, Post-Game(s), just ike &amp; all the people in his life who love him very much and who he loves very much</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 09:01:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,129</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22568266</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRoseGalaxies/pseuds/tepesh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ike is leaving Tellius.</p><p>But first, there are goodbyes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elincia Ridell Crimea &amp; Ike, Ike &amp; Mist (Fire Emblem), Ike &amp; Tiamat | Titania, Ike/Senerio | Soren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>we've come a long way [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623886</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Soren</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this... about a year ago. And then forgot about it, if I'm being honest. There will be six chapters, if all goes according to plan.</p><p>EDIT: all didn't go according to plan. obviously. there's 5 chapters now.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re sitting on the couches with a cup of tea each, Soren flipping through a ledger and Ike across from him looking at nothing in particular. The sun is only just beginning to set, sending spindles of light across the room, and when they rest on Ike’s hair he looks like a portrait in the stained glass windows of the castles they’ve been to and left.</p><p>“Soren, what do you want to do?”</p><p>The question startles him; it’s vague in a way Ike isn’t and his brows are furrowed more than usual. Soren tucks a stray strand of hair behind his ear to buy himself time to think.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“This.” Ike waves his hand around the room, around the fort, around the town, around Crimea. Around Tellius. “What should we do here?”</p><p><em>Whatever you want to do here</em>, Soren doesn’t say. “I assume our mercenary services will be in relatively high demand with the reconstruction efforts,” he says instead, fixing his eyes on a stitch in Ike’s collar rather than his face, “so I believe we will have no shortage of contracts.”</p><p>“I know,” Ike says. The silence between them fills with the clanging of pots and pans and a few of Mist’s light swears from the kitchen. “I know,” Ike begins again, “but do you <em>want</em> to do that?”</p><p>Soren stares. Mercenary work was always simply part of the package: Ike is the Commander, and so, yes, Soren wants to work for him.</p><p>Ike sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I just mean, with all that’s happened… I want to start somewhere else.”</p><p>“Somewhere else?” Soren echoes.</p><p>“I tried to just fade off and go back to our old jobs after the Mad King’s War, but it didn’t work. Bastian found us and another war happened. And now, Bastian said some aristocrats in Crimea were trying to marry me to Elincia or something, and I know every reigning monarch on Tellius on a personal basis, and I don’t think ‘Commander of the Greil Mercenaries’ is what people associate with my name anymore.”</p><p>He’s right, on all accounts; Ike cannot return to obscurity. Such is the price of fame.</p><p>“Nailah said there’s more past Hatari.” Ike’s voice has grown quiet, unsteady in a way only his closest friends would notice. “I’m thinking it wouldn’t be impossible to go there, see what it’s like.”</p><p>Ike has never struck Soren as the type for wanderlust. He knows, in that moment, that this <em>isn’t</em> wanderlust – Ike is not exploring the world beyond, he’s searching for a somewhere else to make a life. He is not, Soren thinks, planning to return.</p><p>Soren’s throat is dry when he dares to speak again. “When will you leave?”</p><p>“I dunno,” Ike says. “Soon, probably. I don’t want some big send-off. I already – I sort of talked to Mist, back at Castle Crimea, about her and inheriting the company, but I don’t – you’re the first person I’ve actually told outright.”</p><p>Soren supposes he should be grateful as the first one Ike confides in. It doesn’t matter, though; it’s outweighed by the crushing force of the knowledge that Ike has deemed there is <em>nothing</em> for him here. Nothing, no one.</p><p>His failed attempts at measured breathing are interrupted by the shift in weight on his couch. Ike, having moved from his chair to Soren’s side, hesitates, a little further from Soren than he usually sits and with his hands hovering awkwardly in the air above his lap. “I get it if you don’t want to. I know the company means a lot to you and it’s the only home you’ve ever had, so…”</p><p>“What?” Soren asks, barely more than a croak.</p><p>Ike frowns. “If you don’t want to come with me, I get it.”</p><p><em>Oh</em>.</p><p>“You… are asking me to come with you? To… wherever?” He can’t stop the pounding in his chest, but he has to be certain, to make sure his mind isn’t playing a trick on him only to take it back and leave him in the dust.</p><p>“If you want,” Ike emphasizes. “You don’t have any obligation to me. I just like being with you, is all.”</p><p>It leaves him in a rushed whisper, desperate to set this moment in stone lest it blow away on some cruel wind. “Yes,” he breathes. “Yes, I want to go with you.”</p><p><em>I wouldn't go anywhere else</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>soren is such a dramatic person. let’s be real, every five seconds he’s like ‘everyone hates me and my world is ending,’ this boy takes after his mom hardcore. he IS, however, a snarky badass too, but this fic is too short to get into that.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Mist (Boyd)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mist and Ike are arguing.</p><p>That’s not unusual; they <em> are </em> siblings. Boyd has enough experience with siblings to know that arguing is just about the only constant across all sibling relationships. Marcia and Makalov. The cat girls, Lethe and Lyre. Rolf in general. When the Goddess made siblings, she made the primary ingredient ‘arguing’.</p><p>So Mist and Ike arguing is nothing of note.</p><p>What they’re arguing <em> about</em>?</p><p>That’s why Boyd is hiding in the pantry.</p><p>“You don’t believe I know enough about the company?” Mist is saying, arms crossed against her chest.</p><p>“Mist, if I didn’t think you know enough about the company, I wouldn’t be <em> having </em> this conversation.” Ike sounds frustrated and exasperated, and a little tired. Boyd feels the same way whenever he talks to Rolf.</p><p>“I punched you at Castle Crimea, I can punch you again,” Mist warns. Ooh. This is why he likes Mist: if words don’t work, she doesn’t mind using her hands.</p><p>Ike winces. “You probably know more about this than me, anyway,” he says. “You can fight <em> and </em> you can manage stuff. I always needed Soren for finances and check-ins.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t let you go off on your own,” Mist says, pointing a finger in her brother’s face. “I’m gonna have a long talk with him about taking care of you, and a long talk with you about taking care of him. The long talk with you can happen right now! Oh, and it’ll be a <em> looong </em> talk about taking care of your <em> self</em>, too!” She starts listing off her points on her fingers. “You don’t sleep enough when you’re stressed, you better remember to eat fruit and vegetables every day, wash your clothes at least once a week - twice a week is better -”</p><p>Ike cuts in when she pauses for breath. “See, you know how to take care of everyone. You’ll be great with the company.”</p><p>Mist straightens her shoulders and returns her hands to her sides. “Of course I will. I’m dad’s daughter, after all!”</p><p>The kitchen is silent as they stare at each other for a moment. Boyd always wonders how they spend so much time together without talking; if he sees Oscar or Rolf for more than half a second, there’ll be words, and they’ll probably be not-very-nice words. Ike and Mist are weird.</p><p>Ike and Mist are also weird because they seem to be having an argument about Mist inheriting the Greil Mercenaries.</p><p>Mist would be a good Commander, Boyd thinks. He’d certainly follow her.</p><p>His train of thought is broken when Mist rushes forward and grabs her brother in a hug. “Promise me you won’t go off somewhere and die where I’m not there to say goodbye,” she whispers, her voice hitching on the last word.</p><p>Ike ruffles her hair but doesn’t let go. “I’ll send you letters, Mist. Sanaki and Queen Nailah are working on establishing trade across the desert. I might disappear to everyone else, but I’ll never disappear from you.”</p><p>“Ike….”</p><p>“Hey.” Ike pulls back from the hug and meets Mist’s eyes. “Commander Mist.” There’s a smile in his voice, the kind Ike reserves for his closest family.</p><p>Mist’s laugh is choked with tears.</p><p> </p><p>By the time Boyd has stopped running his mind in circles about what just happened, Mist and Ike have left the kitchen. Ike is giving command of the Mercenaries to Mist. Ike is… leaving? The Mercenaries? Crimea? Tellius? Boyd has a lot of questions and very little ability to answer them, given that he’s certain he wasn’t supposed to hear that conversation in the first place.</p><p>Someone opens the pantry door. In the process of trying to look like he’s doing something other than eavesdropping in a closet, Boyd’s arm catches on the nearly-empty bag of flour on the top shelf, sending the bag falling and upending the powder down his front.</p><p>Oscar stares at him.</p><p>Boyd stares back and tries not to cough.</p><p>“Boyd, why are you in the pantry?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm not quite satisfied with this chapter, but I didn't want to scrap it. have some lightheartedness courtesy of Boyd, I guess.</p><p>also, I know Nailah’s supposed to be migrating her people across the desert or w/e according to endgame but I vastly prefer the idea of creating trade between the countries instead. there’s got to be more than just Hatari across the desert… and also I need it for plot.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Elincia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this chapter is the entire reason I wrote this fic. I wrote it on my phone at midnight in a hostel in Taiwan and then my phone went and DELETED it, so this is round two.</p><p>I think Ike would say a proper goodbye to Elincia (well, proper in Ike terms) and I really love their friendship. one particular scene, though, was inspired by this art: https://siryamsalot.tumblr.com/post/176952574460/ike-plays-the-harp-yall-can-fight-me-on-this by siryamsalot on tumblr. u blessed me with inspiration, thank u.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s midday when Elincia arrives, flanked by two knights who head into the village as she walks up the dirt path to the Fort. She told them to find an inn, that she may or may not spend the night, that she’s perfectly capable of defending herself from highwaymen, and failing that, she hasn’t repeatedly contracted the Greil Mercenaries for nothing. The sun has soaked through her brown travelling clothes during the journey here and she wishes she’d chosen a whiter disguise.</p><p>She doesn’t get the chance to knock. The door is opened by a grinning Mist who launches herself around Elincia in a squeezing hug.</p><p>“You came!” she says, eyes alight.</p><p>Elincia extracts herself from the hug with grace befitting the queen and returns Mist’s smile. “Of course I came, Mist. I would never miss a chance to speak with my favorite mercenaries.”</p><p>Mist pouts. “Oh, come on, we’re your <em>only</em> mercenaries.” She pauses and puts a finger to her lips. “Unless you’re planning on replacing us!”</p><p>“Never,” Elincia laughs.</p><p>She’s led inside by the girl (not so much a girl anymore, her mind supplies, noting the set of her hips and the shape of her face) to what passes as the living room, where Mia and Boyd are laying on the floor playing cards while Rolf sits between Boyd’s feet on the couch. Rhys appears to be cleaning, although he’s not making much progress considering how much of the floorspace is occupied. The gentle clap of a closing book draws her attention to Soren, curled up in a chair by the hearth with a pen. Elincia sincerely wants to ask him how he isn’t hot, but he interrupts her thoughts with a neutral, “I’ll go tell Ike you’re here,” and heads into the left hallway.</p><p>By the time Ike arrives a few minutes later, Elincia has managed to survive Mia’s leap from the floor that nearly knocked over Rhys and dodged a card Boyd tried to throw at Shinon without considering the card’s lack of aerodynamics. She chats for a while with the Mercenary’s calmest members about the village, repairs on the Fort, how Lucia and Geoffrey are getting on, and by mid-afternoon Elincia finds herself playing a board game with Rolf, Ike, and Mia to the pleasant scent of cooking herbs wafting from Oscar’s kitchen.</p><p>She wonders how she’s reached this place on the outskirts of their little mismatched family and she wishes she could stay a while longer.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The candles are burning and the air passing through the window has cooled when dinner concludes. She thanks Oscar for the rice-based dessert, punctuated with cinnamon and dried fruits, and debates asking him for his recipe.</p><p>Ike stands, stretching with a deep sigh, and pushes in his chair before looking at Elincia. “Want to talk somewhere a little quieter?” he asks, nodding in the direction of a shrieking Mia being stalked by Soren. She thinks the argument stemmed from something about hair ties.</p><p>“There’s never a dull moment with the Greil Mercenaries,” she remarks with a smile and follows Ike.</p><p>He introduces her to the Commander’s room, and she doesn’t miss the weight Ike attaches to the title. It reminds her of the boy helping her reclaim her country, a teenager not confident in his abilities to uphold the role but insistent upon the title and all the responsibility it carried. We have changed, she thinks, but perhaps there is more remaining than we realize.</p><p>Ike pulls a bottle of red wine from a dresser and pours two glasses – a little fuller than she expected – for the two of them. When Ike takes the rickety old chair, Elincia sits gently on the bed and is rewarded with a smile from her host. They sip in silence for a few minutes, the wine smoky and fruity on her tongue, a reprieve from the energy of the afternoon.</p><p>“Do you have any hobbies, Ike?” Elincia begins when it’s clear Ike isn’t going to start talking.</p><p>His mouth quirks behind his glass. “You mean besides swinging my sword around?”</p><p>She huffs. “Most of my nobles might doubt that, but I think I’ve known you for long enough. Oscar bakes desserts, Mist sketches – your Mercenaries are people, too.”</p><p>He smiles, genuine this time, and scratches the back of his neck. “I like braiding,” he says. “I have a couple of really horrible bracelets from when I was a kid, would you like to see?”</p><p>Elincia laughs. Ike doesn’t move to find his bracelets, though, and they return to their quiet contemplation. There’s something heavy in the air. (Perhaps it will rain, she tries to rationalize, although in her heart she feels that’s not the cause.)</p><p>"I'm leaving," Ike says suddenly.</p><p>"Crimea?" She knows that's not the answer, but she thinks if she doesn't ask now the ambiguity will eat her alive.</p><p>"Tellius," he corrects. "Hatari proved there's more out there than we know."</p><p>"You and the Greil Mercenaries?"</p><p>Ike's suddenly defensive, hands clasped in his lap. "Not all of us. There's a lot still here in Tellius, for most of them, and with the war, there'll be reconstruction work. Mercenaries are good for that sort of thing."</p><p>"I see," she says.</p><p>"When we were younger, Mist always said she would become the Commander and I could be her Deputy," Ike continues. She gets the sense he's justifying something, although to her or himself she can't tell. "She'll be good at it, I know." The conviction in his voice has led armies, united races, and to hear it for his sister fills Elincia's heart with some emotion so strong she blinks back tears.</p><p>"Will you write?" she finds herself asking. "Just so I know you're safe, that you've found what lays beyond the world?"</p><p>Ike looks up, meets her eyes. "I'll try."</p><p>She'll have to content herself with that.</p><p>"I know you didn't want to be Queen," says Ike, "but it's pretty admirable that you kept going, even through the mess with the rebels and stuff. You could've left, but you didn't."</p><p>"Crimea needs me," she replies, following the gentle movements of Ike's scarred hands as he braids and unbraids the tassels on an old, stained pillow.</p><p>"Yeah," he says. "You're braver than me."</p><p>Four years ago, the girl in the forest would have refused. A year ago, the queen would still protest. Now, in this stone-walled room in a fort on the edge of her kingdom, Elincia can only smile sadly into her glass.</p><p>For a few minutes the only sounds are the hums of cicadas outside the screened window and the rustle of Ike's braiding.</p><p>“You asked what else I liked to do,” he says without looking up, still focused on his tassels. “Mist sings, you know, and, well, I don’t, but my mom gave me a lute for my birthday once. Bought it for five gold from a travelling bard ‘cause one of its strings was broken.” The chair creaks when he stands and walks to the closet. He pulls a case from the top shelf, releasing a light haze of dust into the air. “I learned all her songs, like Mist did, but I stopped playing altogether by the time I was fifteen or so. I guess I thought the lute wasn’t a suitable activity for a mercenary or something.”</p><p>There is not six years of dust on the case.</p><p>“I played a bit after the Mad King’s War,” he explains, removing the lute from its resting place. Gently, lightly, he runs calloused fingers across each string, eliciting a low hum. He pauses, then glances up at her. “I don’t really play for people, usually,” he says, twisting the knobs a bit and plucking out a few notes. “But I think,” he gives her a smile, “you can be one of the exceptions.”</p><p>Elincia has heard a great variety of music – such is the life of a queen. She’s been serenaded by string orchestras and brass bands at royal galas and ceremonies, danced through every genre known to Crimea, and even studied half a dozen essential instruments as a princess. The lute, in Ike’s hands, is nothing like any of them. It reminds her, in an odd, roundabout way, as they sound nothing alike, of the Herons’ galdrar – the unpredictable rises and falls, the unresolved dissonance, the way no two notes hit exactly the same pitch – and it’s beautiful, so at odds with the man playing it and yet his perfect reflection.</p><p>When the music stops, Elincia almost cries. She wants him to keep playing, wants to hear that song until her ears bleed, and she has to stop herself from forcing Ike's fingers back around the lute and demanding more. "It was beautiful,” she says instead, and if Ike notices the way her voice cracks, he doesn't say.</p><p>"I don't much remember mom's songs and I suck at improvising." He shrugs. "I'm just kinda mixing it at this point."</p><p>Elincia nods, not yet trusting her voice, and takes another sip of wine.</p><p>"It's getting late, though," Ike declares, rising and beginning to pack away his lute. Her eyes follow his slow locomotion across the room to its case, the loosening of its strings, the click of the latches. "It's not a good idea to head out in this dark, especially since Soren said it might rain, and you never know who's on the roads." He gestures towards the bed Elincia is currently sitting on, "you can sleep here. It's the most comfortable bed in the fort, and queens are supposed to have that sort of thing."</p><p>She starts. "I don't - Ike, this is your bed. This is the Commander's room -" </p><p>He waves her off. "I rarely sleep here anyway, so it's no great loss."</p><p>"Soren's room is just down the hall, isn't it?" It's another question that doesn't need an answer.</p><p>"If you mean his second office, then yeah." Ike smiles, small but genuine, and Elincia thinks even if Tellius loses her hero it's worth it to see Ike <em>happy</em>.</p><p>Her eyes are met by deep, bright blue and she watches the spark fade, gone but only hiding, and she knows it will be brighter when Ike is far from the world that knows his name, far from the tensions of beorc and laguz with nothing but his partner and a sword. "After my father was killed, I used to have nightmares, and they didn't get better until after Talrega." Elincia frowns at the nonsequitur but Ike explains, "some of our tents and supplies got washed away in the mudslides so people had to pair up. I didn't have to, but I'd be a poor general if I didn't do as my men, so I paired up with Soren. It helps, if you have someone to wake you up, and then it started helping because I felt safer – I don't know. Then, even when we had tents... Well, it seemed stupid to have a general not at his best."</p><p>Once, Elincia might have been jealous. Once, Ike wouldn't have volunteered his stories, wouldn't have played his lute for her, wouldn't have offered her his home. It's a testament to the ways the wars have changed them.</p><p>"So, you'll take the bed, right?" Ike asks, slight lines around his eyes crinkling with the tease.</p><p>Elincia can't help but smile back. "Thank you, Sir Ike, for your kind hospitality," she says, dipping the bed slightly in a mock curtsy.</p><p>She's glad when she hears him laugh. "G'night, Elincia."</p><p>"Good night, Ike."</p><p>"Oh," he adds, turning, hand on the doorknob, "when it's breakfast time, you'll probably know. There's usually loud running, yelling, cursing, or all three."</p><p>It doesn't escape her notice that he brings nothing to the room down the hall - no change of clothes, no towel, no supplies. Everything he needs is already at his destination.</p><p>The door closes and Elincia is left with the silence of the Crimean woods.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I have a lot of feelings about Elincia and Ike's friendship. like, a lot. please love them with me</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Mist</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>idk why all the works i'm most proud of are less than a thousand words. my shit's short, y'all.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mist is a light sleeper. It makes her a good scout, and when they were young it deterred the boys from playing pranks on her while she slept. She has fond memories of the second time she slapped Boyd in the face with a hairbrush. (There wasn’t a third time.)</p><p>Mist has always been a light sleeper, but sometimes she doesn’t sleep more than a few hours in a night. Tonight’s one of those nights when she’s awake in bed with her sketchbook across her lap, the beginnings of something resting in the charcoal pencil on her nightstand that she can’t seem to put to paper. It’s more comfortable to sit out the dark hours of the morning in bed pretending to be doing something than to either create a culinary disaster for breakfast or walk to Soren’s room and wake up her brother.</p><p>Tonight, he finds her.</p><p>“Come in,” she says. He’ll be startled, on the other side of the door, wondering at how she knew the exact moment he stopped walking and reached for the handle. It’s easy; Ike’s habits are as ingrained in her as her own.</p><p>The door opens softly on oiled hinges. By her candle and the first rays of dawn, she sees her brother fully dressed in all but his armor and cloak. She feels suddenly unprepared in her too-small nightgown, protected from the world by only two sheets of fabric.</p><p>“Hey,” he says.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>They are neither of them strong with words. Mist is learning to value the silence her brother has always favored, and tonight the space between them is too thick with something else to be filled with words. She sets her sketchbook on the blanket beside her and steps out of bed.</p><p>Ike suddenly wraps his arms around her, pressing her face into his shoulder and holding her tightly. She can feel him shake with each breath as they stand there for a moment that could be forever. The last time they might ever hold each other.</p><p>In the faint twilight, Mist does not cry. It’s a liminal space, this beat between one life and the next, between a world with Ike and a world without him, and Mist is stronger in this moment than she has ever been with a sword or a staff, holding her brother as he holds her.</p><p>“Keep up your practice,” Ike finally says, his voice less than a whisper.</p><p>She laughs and tightens her grip on his shirt. “When I make chicken pot pie and chop carrots and celery with a greatsword, I’ll have surpassed you <em> and </em> Oscar,” she whispers back.</p><p>Ike’s laugh is shaky and barely audible, but he squeezes her once and draws back.</p><p>“You’re going to be the best,” he whispers. <em> The best Commander, the best sister, the best woman</em>. She knows all the ways he finishes that sentence in his mind. She knows Ike better than she’s ever known anything else.</p><p>“You too,” she says, and her words are low but they are steady and she pulls her brother back into an embrace and imagines the future and the present and the past all leading to <em> this</em>, the moment when they are the only two people in the world.</p><p>“Actually,” Ike says when they separate, “you <em> are </em> the best.”</p><p>“I know,” she says. “And don’t you forget it.”</p><p> </p><p>She walks with him to the entrance of the Fort. Soren hands Ike a cloak, and for a moment she meets his eyes. He nods, barely a motion at all, and she dips her head in acknowledgement.</p><p>Ike opens the door. The sun will soon break above the trees, but for now it outlines their shadows in a faded grey.</p><p>“I love you,” she says.</p><p>Her brother turns, and his face is cast in shadow. “I love you, too, Mist.”</p><p> </p><p>She watches them down the path until their figures are swallowed by the forest. She does not know if she will see him again. She does not know if he will survive whatever lies across the desert. She does not know if she will fall to an arrow or an axe in one year or ten years or forty. She does not know what the future will be, but she knows what it means to hold and to be held, and she knows they will hold to each other even when they are worlds and lives apart.</p><p>She picks up her pencil and begins to sketch.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>